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In his blog post My Virgin experience as a Paedophile!, Sydney firefighter John McGirr details how Virgin Australia treated him as a pedophile because he was assigned a seat next to two unaccompanied boys around age 10. When an airline stewardess observed he was sitting next to the kids, she demanded that he give up the seat. She then asked a woman to take his seat, telling her that he was not allowed to sit next to minors. In other words, she implicitly defamed him as a child sex offender simply because he is male.

Since this story showed up on the Sydney Morning Herald’s website on August 10, there have been more than 800 comments and over 44,000 votes on Virgin’s policy against men. 87% of the votes cast say that Virgin’s policy is sexist and suggests all men are potential pedophiles.

In 2008, a 14-year-old boy was flying by himself on a Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to Orlando. The boy and his family claim that Southwest Airlines refused to change his seat even though he was being sexually harassed and offered illegal drugs by an intoxicated woman sitting next to him. They have filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the airline in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging the airline is negligent because the woman was obviously harassing the boy and was drunk or on drugs yet the airline refused to protect the child despite repeated requests for help.Read more…